Religion classes in school - Megathread

silentraven6 said:Are you kidding me?

I honestly feel for the kids enrolled in religious studies classes. It’s like we assume they lack any sense of discernment or critical thinking, right? Like their brains just don't work yet?

It always seems to boil down to this: if a kid doesn't take those classes, the parents are treated like outcasts who shouldn't even be spoken to. It's as if providing them with extra knowledge is somehow forbidden, and they should just be left to fend for themselves without any guidance at all.

Personally, I wouldn't dream of trying to fix one injustice by committing another, even if there were strict rules about supplemental education. How does that even work? You try to solve a problem by making things worse? That's just nonsense.

At the end of the day, parents should have the same freedom to choose between an extra math tutor and a religious studies class.

What are you even talking about?
Who actually said anything about sidelining kids who skip religion class?
Those are issues you take up with the government; the religious students have nothing to do with it. If the US signed a Concordat, then the US should have protected the kids not attending those classes too.
Since they didn't, the US is the entity you need to hold accountable.

And no, in this specific instance, this isn't about parental choice, BECAUSE ELECTIVES CANNOT BE PART OF THE CORE CURRICULUM. This is about a teacher acting on her own whims, which she claims is "for your benefit."
It suits your interests, so suddenly it’s "fair."
That’s the kind of "justice" they practice: as long as my kid gets what they want, I couldn't care less about anyone else!

Persephone said:So, instead of finding a way to be home earlier, she took religion class, even though it's an elective, essentially forcing her to stay at school longer. Unpaid.

Agreed.

Donna Taylor5 said:What are you even talking about?
Who actually said anything about sidelining kids who skip religion class?
Those are issues you take up with the government; the religious students have nothing to do with it. If the US signed a Concordat, then the US should have protected the kids not attending those classes too.
Since they didn't, the US is the entity you need to hold accountable.

And no, in this specific instance, this isn't about parental choice, BECAUSE ELECTIVES CANNOT BE PART OF THE CORE CURRICULUM. This is about a teacher acting on her own whims, which she claims is "for your benefit."
It suits your interests, so suddenly it’s "fair."
That’s the kind of "justice" they practice: as long as my kid gets what they want, I couldn't care less about anyone else!

Agreed.

If you ask me, I honestly think there's actually a tiny fraction of parents (on both sides of the aisle, really) who genuinely give a damn about the other kids while their own are taken care of; most people are just being stubborn and using these kinds of debates as an emotional vent to blow off steam...😁

Maybe I’m looking at this all wrong, but I seriously don't get why anyone has such a massive issue with religious ed classes, having a chaplain on campus, or school-based theology... provided it isn't some forced imposition of a specific ideology, right? What's the actual problem? Is it not the hypocrisy of parents who dutifully sign their kids up for religion class one minute, then turn around and claim they only did it so their kids wouldn't be wandering aimlessly through the hallways the next?🤦

At my local public school—and based on what I hear from friends who work in the field, like one psychologist and one teacher I know—everyone would find things so much easier if they could just form one single group consisting solely of students who aren't attending religious studies. But no matter how hard they try, or how much they reach out to parents to explain the logistics, they just can't pull it off year after year... out of a freshman class of maybe 80 to 100 students, the school can almost never scrape together that minimum requirement of, say, 14 students needed to form a standalone elective class... so, does it even make sense to treat religious education as this huge, controversial flashpoint when it's mostly just a logistical headache?

Lawrence Torres56 said:If you ask me, I honestly think there's actually a tiny fraction of parents (on both sides of the aisle, really) who genuinely give a damn about the other kids while their own are taken care of; most people are just being stubborn and using these kinds of debates as an emotional vent to blow off steam...😁

Maybe I’m looking at this all wrong, but I seriously don't get why anyone has such a massive issue with religious ed classes, having a chaplain on campus, or school-based theology... provided it isn't some forced imposition of a specific ideology, right? What's the actual problem? Is it not the hypocrisy of parents who dutifully sign their kids up for religion class one minute, then turn around and claim they only did it so their kids wouldn't be wandering aimlessly through the hallways the next?🤦

At my local public school—and based on what I hear from friends who work in the field, like one psychologist and one teacher I know—everyone would find things so much easier if they could just form one single group consisting solely of students who aren't attending religious studies. But no matter how hard they try, or how much they reach out to parents to explain the logistics, they just can't pull it off year after year... out of a freshman class of maybe 80 to 100 students, the school can almost never scrape together that minimum requirement of, say, 14 students needed to form a standalone elective class... so, does it even make sense to treat religious education as this huge, controversial flashpoint when it's mostly just a logistical headache?

Nah, that’s just not how it works...
At my local high school, they definitely could have put together a separate group for the kids skipping religion, but they chose not to.
The real reason? It's probably because doing that would actually free up two hours of instructional time in the weekly schedule, and heaven forbid anyone disrupts the status quo. 🙄
We all know whose interests are being protected most within our American school system. ☕

redridge13 said:Nah, that’s just not how it works...
At my local high school, they definitely could have put together a separate group for the kids skipping religion, but they chose not to.
The real reason? It's probably because doing that would actually free up two hours of instructional time in the weekly schedule, and heaven forbid anyone disrupts the status quo. 🙄
We all know whose interests are being protected most within our American school system. ☕

The whole point is to take the pressure off kids in non-believing families so they aren't constantly being pushed toward the "right path."

If we made religious education mandatory in schools, the equivalent would be forcing lectures on materialism right in the middle of Mass. Not before, not after—dead center. And anyone who doesn't want to listen? They can just stand in the back and deal with it.

Lawrence Torres56 said:If you ask me, I honestly think there's actually a tiny fraction of parents (on both sides of the aisle, really) who genuinely give a damn about the other kids while their own are taken care of; most people are just being stubborn and using these kinds of debates as an emotional vent to blow off steam...😁

Maybe I’m looking at this all wrong, but I seriously don't get why anyone has such a massive issue with religious ed classes, having a chaplain on campus, or school-based theology... provided it isn't some forced imposition of a specific ideology, right? What's the actual problem? Is it not the hypocrisy of parents who dutifully sign their kids up for religion class one minute, then turn around and claim they only did it so their kids wouldn't be wandering aimlessly through the hallways the next?🤦

At my local public school—and based on what I hear from friends who work in the field, like one psychologist and one teacher I know—everyone would find things so much easier if they could just form one single group consisting solely of students who aren't attending religious studies. But no matter how hard they try, or how much they reach out to parents to explain the logistics, they just can't pull it off year after year... out of a freshman class of maybe 80 to 100 students, the school can almost never scrape together that minimum requirement of, say, 14 students needed to form a standalone elective class... so, does it even make sense to treat religious education as this huge, controversial flashpoint when it's mostly just a logistical headache?

I'm with you on that...

It also drives me crazy when parents have their kids eat lunch at 1:00 PM because of whatever scheduling reason exists, and then they don't even bother asking what their kids are doing between 1:15 and 2:00 PM when class starts—yet they make such a huge fuss over a gap in the schedule caused by religion class. For instance, I personally wonder why they have two hours of religion class instead of just one, like music class. Why not take that extra hour and use it for PE? We're constantly hearing about how the nation is becoming overweight. And frankly, it bugs me that religion class is so dry and boring. Why wasn't it designed to actually spark interest or reflect the values it's supposed to teach? The kids who skip religion class aren't outcasts or weirdos; quite the opposite. In our class, everyone is actually jealous of the first girl who opts out, because she gets to hang out in the library with the teacher while the rest of them are stuck in a snooze-fest.

Richard Perez3 said:My 8-year-old isn't even going.
To say I was shocked would be an understatement.
They’re heading to the local library with their teacher instead—doing stuff like drawing, meeting new people, chatting, reading, all that jazz.
Honestly? I’m more than happy with how this is playing out so far.

It's the exact same situation here, except only 6 out of 23 kids in the class aren't going. I'm also beyond satisfied. Their religion class falls during 2nd and 4th periods—right in the middle of the school day—but they'll be hanging out with the teacher in the library instead.

redridge13 said:Nah, that’s just not how it works...
At my local high school, they definitely could have put together a separate group for the kids skipping religion, but they chose not to.
The real reason? It's probably because doing that would actually free up two hours of instructional time in the weekly schedule, and heaven forbid anyone disrupts the status quo. 🙄
We all know whose interests are being protected most within our American school system. ☕

What exactly does a teacher lose if the rest of the class decides to take the religious studies course?

The real culprit is the Department of Education, which dictates how these class sections are structured. As soon as you split them up, you're forced to expand the weekly schedule for everyone—like giving a history teacher two extra periods. And once those hours go up, the payroll follows.

HBT, it’s all just one big conspiracy.🙄.

I can't help but wonder what would happen if we actually offered a real choice between electives—like, say, choosing between religious studies, math, a foreign language, or computer science.

Last year, I actually sat down with someone from the local school board to talk about how they could introduce a new elective if enough parents signed up. They basically brushed me off, saying it wasn’t possible because the schedule is already set in stone and adding anything else would just overlap with existing classes. When I pointed out that it wouldn't have to clash with religion classes—that it would be one or the other—the lady just laughed at me and explained how "unfeasible" that was...

And honestly, my kid isn't taking those classes for a few specific reasons:

a) It doesn't interest him; he'll get plenty of chances to learn that stuff elsewhere.
b) The textbook is just painfully dull.
c) I don't want to be part of a community that turns a blind eye to others, so this is my way of quietly protesting (sort of like when I didn't tell my boss I was pregnant and ended up getting fired).
d) I refuse to let my child—who is perfectly capable of deciding his own faith or talking about God on his own terms—be raised under rigid dogma and those twisted Pharisaical values you see in certain parts of the American Church, preaching a version of faith that I was never even taught.

Donna Taylor5 said:What exactly does a teacher lose if the rest of the class decides to take the religious studies course?

The real culprit is the Department of Education, which dictates how these class sections are structured. As soon as you split them up, you're forced to expand the weekly schedule for everyone—like giving a history teacher two extra periods. And once those hours go up, the payroll follows.

HBT, it’s all just one big conspiracy.🙄.

I don't see how they could stay on the same schedule if the numbers shift. Imagine having three classes where you have 8, 6, and 3 non-religious students, versus having two religious classes and one large group of 17 non-religious students.
In that first scenario, you're looking at three classes, which means six hours of religious ed in the first grade.
But in the second scenario, you only have two classes, so that's down to four hours in the first grade.

If they keep reducing the number of religious education sections like this with every generation, you eventually end up with a 16-hour workload, which basically means you don't even need a full-time teacher anymore.🥳

Donna Taylor5 said:What exactly does a teacher lose if the rest of the class decides to take the religious studies course?

The real culprit is the Department of Education, which dictates how these class sections are structured. As soon as you split them up, you're forced to expand the weekly schedule for everyone—like giving a history teacher two extra periods. And once those hours go up, the payroll follows.

HBT, it’s all just one big conspiracy.🙄.

I don't know about that, let me run some quick math on the first graders for you 🙂

Now that we have these "mixed" classes, you've got N first-grade classes at 2 hours a week. If they lumped all those non-religious students into one single class, you'd only have N-1 classes at 2 hours a week.
That's an 8-hour drop per month in total instructional time just for the first grade.

The number of classes stays what it is; it just comes down to how the school decides to shuffle the kids around.

edit: rhinoceros 🙂

You can get mad at me if you want, but doesn't separating kids into religious and non-religious classes feel a bit like ghettoization to you?

rowdypanther12 said:You can get mad at me if you want, but doesn't separating kids into religious and non-religious classes feel a bit like ghettoization to you?

Honestly, what bugs me even more is watching them pull a handful of kids out of the classroom mid-lesson just to go do their religion studies. It’s such a mess.

I don't know, looking at my little girl right now, I have to be honest—she’d much rather be spending her time drawing in the library twice a week than being stuck in a classroom without her preschool friends.

rowdypanther12 said:You can get mad at me if you want, but doesn't separating kids into religious and non-religious classes feel a bit like ghettoization to you?

Nah, I don't see it that way at all—to me, it doesn't feel like segregation, it just feels like respecting what different groups actually want.
Personally, I think it's a way better option than forcing one side to swallow something they have absolutely no interest in.

redridge13 said:Nah, that’s just not how it works...
At my local high school, they definitely could have put together a separate group for the kids skipping religion, but they chose not to.
The real reason? It's probably because doing that would actually free up two hours of instructional time in the weekly schedule, and heaven forbid anyone disrupts the status quo. 🙄
We all know whose interests are being protected most within our American school system. ☕

Have you even checked with the administration at your school, just to confirm that things aren't actually happening exactly the way you're assuming?😁

Look, I really don't want to step on any toes by commenting on how things go down at your specific school since I don't know the local vibe there, but from what I've seen at mine (and the other two nearby), the staff goes absolutely overboard trying to play ball with whatever parents want...
For instance, we have two kids in our class who skip the religion lessons, but it wasn't because the school was trying to pad out some teacher's hourly quota; it happened because it was the only way to satisfy their parents' specific demands.

Susan James said:I don't see how they could stay on the same schedule if the numbers shift. Imagine having three classes where you have 8, 6, and 3 non-religious students, versus having two religious classes and one large group of 17 non-religious students.
In that first scenario, you're looking at three classes, which means six hours of religious ed in the first grade.
But in the second scenario, you only have two classes, so that's down to four hours in the first grade.

If they keep reducing the number of religious education sections like this with every generation, you eventually end up with a 16-hour workload, which basically means you don't even need a full-time teacher anymore.🥳

You think that if 8, 6, or 3 kids out of a class of 20 opt out of religious studies, those remaining 43 religious students would just be redistributed into two classes?
That’s a stretch.
The Department of Defense—or rather, our school board—hardly ever decides to merge or split classes, especially since almost every single classroom includes students on specialized IEP programs.

Actually, the situation you're describing could only happen if fifteen students from two different classes of twenty opted out at once. Then you'd be left with five students wanting religious instruction in each, forcing those two groups to merge into one class.
I'm exaggerating, but that would be a massive shift.
It’s a scenario that’s hard to imagine, and it would hit the other teachers too, because everyone would lose instructional hours due to that merger.

mom2be said:Why wouldn't they? Let's look at some math for the 1st grade.

Now that classes are "mixed," if you have N number of first grades with 2 hours a week, putting all the non-religious kids in one group would leave you with (N-1) x 2 hours per week.
That's 8 fewer hours a month on the schedule just for the first grade.

The number of classes is what it is; it's up to the school how they arrange the kids.

edit: nosorog

Fine, let's go.
So, we have three classes of 20 kids.
If five kids from each of those three classes decide they don't want religious studies, you form one new class of fifteen kids.
You still have 15 religious students in each of the original three classes 😉, so the religious instructor still has 6 hours of teaching time across those three classes.

@nosorog, a 16-hour weekly load isn't even a bad schedule.

Donna Taylor5 said:You think that if 8, 6, or 3 kids out of a class of 20 opt out of religious studies, those remaining 43 religious students would just be redistributed into two classes?
That’s a stretch.
The Department of Defense—or rather, our school board—hardly ever decides to merge or split classes, especially since almost every single classroom includes students on specialized IEP programs.

Actually, the situation you're describing could only happen if fifteen students from two different classes of twenty opted out at once. Then you'd be left with five students wanting religious instruction in each, forcing those two groups to merge into one class.
I'm exaggerating, but that would be a massive shift.
It’s a scenario that’s hard to imagine, and it would hit the other teachers too, because everyone would lose instructional hours due to that merger.

Fine, let's go.
So, we have three classes of 20 kids.
If five kids from each of those three classes decide they don't want religious studies, you form one new class of fifteen kids.
You still have 15 religious students in each of the original three classes 😉, so the religious instructor still has 6 hours of teaching time across those three classes.

@nosorog, a 16-hour weekly load isn't even a bad schedule.

No, no, no, 🙂
Try reading with actual comprehension for once. 😉
Here’s the deal: now you have five different classes where 3 to 5 kids aren't attending the religious studies sessions.
The teacher, naturally, ends up with 5x2 hours a week just dealing with the first graders.
If they try to tweak the schedule so there are four religious study classes and one non-religious one, the number of kids and total classes stays identical, but the teacher loses 8 hours of pay a month—and all that loss comes strictly from their first-grade sessions.

redridge13 said:No, no, no, 🙂
Try reading with actual comprehension for once. 😉
Here’s the deal: now you have five different classes where 3 to 5 kids aren't attending the religious studies sessions.
The teacher, naturally, ends up with 5x2 hours a week just dealing with the first graders.
If they try to tweak the schedule so there are four religious study classes and one non-religious one, the number of kids and total classes stays identical, but the teacher loses 8 hours of pay a month—and all that loss comes strictly from their first-grade sessions.

Right.
Not necessarily. It all hinges on total enrollment (like I mentioned earlier, @nosorogu) and how many students require accommodations.

My point is that at this rate, we're heading straight toward forming entirely secular classrooms. 😉.

Donna Taylor5 said:You think that if 8, 6, or 3 kids out of a class of 20 opt out of religious studies, those remaining 43 religious students would just be redistributed into two classes?
That’s a stretch.
The Department of Defense—or rather, our school board—hardly ever decides to merge or split classes, especially since almost every single classroom includes students on specialized IEP programs.

Actually, the situation you're describing could only happen if fifteen students from two different classes of twenty opted out at once. Then you'd be left with five students wanting religious instruction in each, forcing those two groups to merge into one class.
I'm exaggerating, but that would be a massive shift.
It’s a scenario that’s hard to imagine, and it would hit the other teachers too, because everyone would lose instructional hours due to that merger.

Fine, let's go.
So, we have three classes of 20 kids.
If five kids from each of those three classes decide they don't want religious studies, you form one new class of fifteen kids.
You still have 15 religious students in each of the original three classes 😉, so the religious instructor still has 6 hours of teaching time across those three classes.

@nosorog, a 16-hour weekly load isn't even a bad schedule.

If they did it that way, the classes would be set right at enrollment, which would prevent all this messy reshuffling later on.

Donna Taylor5 said:Right.
Not necessarily. It all hinges on total enrollment (like I mentioned earlier, @nosorogu) and how many students require accommodations.

My point is that at this rate, we're heading straight toward forming entirely secular classrooms. 😉.

Look, I'm talking about what's actually happening on the ground at our school.
During enrollment, everyone knew exactly how many kids weren't doing the religious studies, yet they still stuck to the class groupings they did.
Why? Because some administrator refuses to let their precious master schedule get messed up.

They’d rather screw over five elementary teachers by leaving massive gaps in their schedules just so one religious studies teacher can keep a perfect, uninterrupted block. Pure nonsense.